Billy Stewart

Billy Stewart is a Singer / Songwriter who lives in the Lanarkshire village of Overtown near Wishaw . Many of Billy’s songs reflect the range of industries that have surrounded him during his life notably Mining ,Agriculture and Steel though his repertoire also includes songs which show his great sense of humour.
Billy has been involved for a number of years in songwriting projects with primary schools and youth groups and has been instrumental in providing these groups with songs that make young people aware of their own local history.

A number of his songs have been performed and recorded by many of Scotland’s best known Folk Singers and Groups including The McCalmans, Ronnie Browne, Gaberlunzie, Robin Laing, Crooked Jack and Stephen Quigg while his song THE RED LION OF SCOTLAND has been taken as the title track of The Saltires latest CD.
Billy recorded his first solo album, MEMORIES OF MY FUTURE, with Ian McCalman and followed that up with HAMESPUN SONGS. A third album THE BEST OF THREE was produced with the help of Gaberlunzie and is another dip into Billy’s collection of self penned songs. The most recent CD is STEEL AWAY a collection of songs about the Steel industry in and around Motherwell.

Billy is a member of the Lanarkshire Songwriters Group and has been involved in a number of projects with them. He was one of the songwriters who visited Islay as the guests of Bruichladdich distillery to write songs about the island and it’s inhabitants. Twenty songs were penned from this visit and have been captured on CD. Billy was also one of the songwriters who provided songs for the 14 Victoria Cross winners from Lanarkshire and his songs can be found on the CD 14 GALLANT MEN. Together with Robin Laing and Aonghas MacNeacail, Billy was involved in Edinbanter  a project of songwriting as part of the Edinbane Festival on Skye.

Billy is currently the project director of SONGLINES a songwriting project covering all of South Lanarkshire as part of  The New Makars Trust. This is a two year project funded by The Scottish Arts Council and by South Lanarkshire Council which involves primary and secondary schools, adult learning centres, residential homes and day care centres and individuals in songwriting workshops and performances. The object is to have people writing and performing songs about their own communities.